As a result of domestic pressure or international prescription, many national higher education systems (HESs) in Europe have undergone structural changes over the last 30 years. These changes have been made primarily to enhance the overall performance – defined as students’ access, quality of teaching, and excellence in research – of universities. As such, almost all of these countries have decided to adopt similar policy strategies to foster institutional autonomy and differentiation, and greater managerial steering. However, although similar policy patterns have been replicated, performance indicators are remarkably variable across Western European countries. Thus, many of the proposed explanations may be oversimplifications of reality. This issue leads to our main research question: Which factors are associated with (teaching) performance improvement in HE? This paper focuses on university-level education to explore the possibility that this association is conjunctural in nature. In other words, when considering the performance of university systems (i.e. teaching), it is important to identify the most effective combination of institutional autonomy, evaluation, internal governance, and public funding. Qualitative comparative analysis was employed to test this expectation on developments (1988–2008) in 12 HESs in Western Europe: Austria, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden. The results suggest that giving more institutional autonomy to universities is much less important than expected, whereas severe evaluation, generous public funding, and verticalized governance emerge as more relevant.
Exploring the determinants of higher education performance in Western Europe: A qualitative comparative analysis
Capano, Giliberto;Pritoni, Andrea
2019-01-01
Abstract
As a result of domestic pressure or international prescription, many national higher education systems (HESs) in Europe have undergone structural changes over the last 30 years. These changes have been made primarily to enhance the overall performance – defined as students’ access, quality of teaching, and excellence in research – of universities. As such, almost all of these countries have decided to adopt similar policy strategies to foster institutional autonomy and differentiation, and greater managerial steering. However, although similar policy patterns have been replicated, performance indicators are remarkably variable across Western European countries. Thus, many of the proposed explanations may be oversimplifications of reality. This issue leads to our main research question: Which factors are associated with (teaching) performance improvement in HE? This paper focuses on university-level education to explore the possibility that this association is conjunctural in nature. In other words, when considering the performance of university systems (i.e. teaching), it is important to identify the most effective combination of institutional autonomy, evaluation, internal governance, and public funding. Qualitative comparative analysis was employed to test this expectation on developments (1988–2008) in 12 HESs in Western Europe: Austria, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden. The results suggest that giving more institutional autonomy to universities is much less important than expected, whereas severe evaluation, generous public funding, and verticalized governance emerge as more relevant.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
---|---|---|---|
Capano-Pritoni_Reg&Gov (2019).pdf
Accesso riservato
Tipo di file:
POSTPRINT (VERSIONE FINALE DELL’AUTORE)
Dimensione
302.35 kB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
302.35 kB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri Richiedi una copia |
(2019) Capano-Pritoni_Regulation & Governance.pdf
Accesso riservato
Tipo di file:
PDF EDITORIALE
Dimensione
302.35 kB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
302.35 kB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri Richiedi una copia |
(2019) Capano-Pritoni_Regulation & Governance_postprint.pdf
Accesso aperto
Descrizione: articolo su rivista
Tipo di file:
POSTPRINT (VERSIONE FINALE DELL’AUTORE)
Dimensione
1.25 MB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
1.25 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri |
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.